Controversial Facebook campaign features a model stripping for Likes

There’s been a lot of creative and interactive ways brands are utilizing the Like button on Facebook, so it didn’t take long for California-based clothing company Stüssy to realize it could garner new male fans by having a model strip according to the number of Likes the brand receives.

The Dutch fan page for Stüssy features an attractive woman piled up in what we assume are the company’s entire line its latest collection. When a person clicks Like, the page takes you to a flash video of the model in various pictures wearing less clothes, and gets her down to a tank top and a pair of shorts. To continue getting the model more naked, you can share or invite friends to Like the page too to further undress her. However, Facebook’s photo guideline and policies do prohibit nudity so it’s safe to assume the model will probably strip down to her bikini at the very end.

“As you can imagine, the model must be suffocating under that many layers of clothing,” said Colin Lamberton, creative director for Arnold Amsterdam, the agency that created the ad campaign. “It is almost a public duty to free her out of this misery, so we are expecting Facebook fans to help out here. Like and undress.”

To call this explanation a euphemism is putting it lightly. The campaign is obviously a sleazy way to gain the attention of curious minds, not for those who actually care for the products. The social network’s policy also notes that “You must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the Like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion,” so technically this does violate some policies.

What’s weirder is that’s all the fan page contains. What exactly is she wearing? Where can I buy it? How much does it cost? None of that information exists. The Timeline page of the brand does not address these issues, only promote people to support the campaign.

If the brand wants to be successful for what it actually sells, we think it needs to get its head back in the marketing game and earn its fans the fair and square way. The moving pictures of the model stripping goes by way too quickly to even tell what the product she’s wearing looks like. The campaign is also prime for alienating and being offensive to its female fan base, so we’re not sure how beneficial this is supposed to be for Stüssy.

So the moral is this: Original? Yes. Trashy? Even more so. Unless of course, that’s the kind of word association the brand wants. After all, having everyone on Facebook talk about how you’re the brand with a stripper just doesn’t get any classier.